Welcome! Grab a cup of tea, and enjoy browsing some of the photos and stories. As the 'teawife,' it is my duty to watch and listen and be a supportive friend, and a loving mum and wife. I should post more often, but sticking my nose into everyone's business keeps me busy! Kathy the teawife

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Need a better mousetrap (or a bigger boat)

We had a mousy problem. This is not uncommon in old English homes as the damp and cold relentless weather sets in for the winter. Many homes have entry points that mice love to exploit. Our garage is riddled with opportunities for scrawny rodents to slide inside.

The house has been refurbished countless times since it was first built in the 1930s. The wiring and plumbing in the garage look like some kind of Frankenstein experiment of bad engineering. Our bedroom is placed over the garage, and I sometimes wonder if we are just going to go boom in the middle of the night. Gas lines, hot water pipes, electric wires -- all cross over one another like some scary bowl of spaghetti. One spot that allows access for electrical wires into the circuit system in the house also allows access to clever mice.

We've been in the house for five winters now. From experience, the mice problem creeps up when you are not aware. They make themselves comfy, invite their friends, bring in the beer kegs, all while you mindlessly go about your business. UNTIL . . . you see signs. This time, I discovered evidence of mice activity in the laundry/storage room, where I keep the bird seed. Okay, you would expect them to hone in on the bird seed and stuff themselves silly. But no . . . instead they were more interested in special bags of Pamela's Gluten Free Pancake Mix, which I hand carry from the US to England. It's a rare and special stash. The plastic packaging is sealed completed and nearly impervious to outside forces, yet some mouse sniffed it out and gnawed open the package. They had to shimmy up the dryer and into the drawer of a storage unit that is 7 feet off the ground. Two bags of my precious flour were destroyed!

Where are those darned mouse traps anyway? We didn't have mice last winter, so I lost track of the traps. We have been using humane traps; Niall would then take captured mice on a car trip and release the buggers miles from the house. In case you aren't familiar with mice, they like chocolate, and peanut butter. Once the humane traps were found and dusted off, I used a Cadbury Dairy Milk Button as the bait.

Next morning, I surveyed the traps and found all three to be missing the chocolate! How did the mice manage to liberate the chocolate without trapping themselves. In addition, some smart alec mouse had climbed up our bar, where I had displayed some Christmas-themed chocolate animals, and eaten the arse out of a chocolate polar bear!

Hmmmmm . . . I needed a better mouse trap. I bought a slightly larger humane trap at the local 'iron mongers,' and baited all of my traps again. Eventually, we caught two mice, which were entered into the witness protection program and relocated to another section of Surrey.

However, one mouse remained, and he came to be known as Einstein, as he had perfected the ability to slide into traps and retrieve the chocolate and escape.

Now we needed a bigger boat! I was off to the iron mongers again, and it was time to play dirty. We bought a different kind of mouse trap, if you know what I mean, reading between the lines. Incredibly, this cagey mouse figured out how to steal the chocolate, set off the trap, and never get whammied. But not to be out done by a clever mouse, my clever hubby used the other favorite food of mice (peanut butter) as glue. He put a dollop of peanut butter onto the trap and stuck on the chocolate. Stealing the chocolate would be a sticky and tricky situation for Einstein.

The next morning heralded a sad day in the household for all mice kind. Einstein had finally met his match.

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About Me

Welcome! I am Kathy the Teawife. Having been fortunate to travel around the world and live in the United States, England, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi, I've now settled in a lakehouse nestled in the Colorado Front Range with my recently retired hubby. With our son away pursuing a doctoral degree in genetics and biochemistry at the School of Medicine, University of Cardiff, Wales, hubby and I have loads of time to play and explore. While I started my professional career as a publication writer and editor, my various detours and life events have led me into different avenues. Today, my passions include paper crafting, creating cards, designing mixed media pieces, taking photos, messing around with design software, and blogging. I especially enjoy teaching crafty projects, either in person or online. I've found that paper crafting is a wonderful way to meet new people when moving to new places. Thank you for stopping by for a visit!